SoCal Minds

In tiny flies' frenzy, clues to ADHD in children

From Caltech

Fruit flies display a primitive, emotion-like behavior -- a frantic reaction to puffs of air -- that may provide valuable information about humans, especially children with disorders such as hyperactivity and attention deficit. Through a series of clever experiment, mathematical modeling and an understanding of the insect's genes, researchers say that the flies exhibiting a hypersensitivity to the stimulus of the puffs of air had a mutated receptor in their brains affecting the chemical dopamine, which has been linked to reductions in impulsive behavior, poor attention and hyperactivity. While some researchers have sought to show that Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) also is linked with learning disabilities, at least in the fruit flies, these were found to be separate brain issues in the fruit fly, suggesting that in humans, treatment might better occur with two different medications, rather than one broad-spectrum pharmaceutical with many side effects.

Puffs of air send some fruit flies into a snit, offering key insights on genes, brains, dopamine

Chapman's impact on county: $204 million a year

From Chapman University

The school, its faculty, students and staff -- via wages, salaries, goods and services, equipment and capital expenditures -- has a total, estimated economic impact on Orange County of $204.2 million annually, researchers say. This estimate, which updates a 1991 study, shows that as the university has sought to increase its educational standing in the last two decades or so, its economic impact -- including the effect of the school on taxes and education costs -- has increased by almost 350%. Researchers take note but did not seek to quantify the university's community benefits, such as how it contributes to the county's cultural, intellectual and recreational life and resources. Just how did the researchers, though, come up with their numbers? Their report explains. Interesting to note that the Trojans this year commissioned outside experts to develop their economic impact data; the Los Angeles university, which has roughly seven times the undergrad and grad enrollment, figures its economic impact at $4.9 billion. 

Push for prominence increases economic effect by estimated 350%

New findings from far edge of solar system

From USC

After more than three decades of dreaming, imagining and researching what might be out at the solar system's edge, a Trojan scientist has not only begun to see but also to map phenomena that not only once were thought to be impossible to realize but also that represents what some are terming a frontier in humanity's understanding of its place in the galaxy. This culmination of years of work can be traced to  NASA's Interstellar Boundary Explorer spacecraft program, which, after a launch months ago, has begun to send back data from deep space about the telling activity of certain atomic particles. Science magazine, in an issue with some results from this work highlighted on its cover, reports that the data show a "narrow ribbon of bright details or emissions" unfamiliar under existing theoretical models for what should be there.

Pioneering Trojan expert seeing decades of theory tested by space sensors

Tests advance on alloy for artery-opening stents

From UCLA

For 10 million Americans afflicted with peripheral arterial disease, commonly known as hardening of the arteries, a combination of miracle metals and new surgeries could provide a significant advance in quality of life researchers say, noting that federal stimulus aid will let them take a key new step in their work. They've been pushing to see how to adapt a superelastic nickel-titanium alloy, Nitinol, for use in implantable devices such as stents to keep open clogged blood passages. The metal has some key advantages, including its malleability and capacity to be fabricated into microscopically skinny films, which could be used as a stent coating. But as with many such materials, it appeared to have issues in causing blood platelets to create clots on its surface. Experts think they have resolved this challenge but now will use federal aid for animal studies to show that their potentially innovative devices stay clot free, allowing their human application.  

New material, applications could aid those with hardening of arteries

Expertise, talent tapped for Hollywood, online

From UCR & CSULA

There's no doubt that LA's an Industry town and the abundance of talent for media -- old and new -- in the region is huge. Still, it all crops up in odd ways, such as the weed and invasive plant expert who ended up advising on an upcoming, big-budget Hollywood movie and its accompanying video games. Or the online designer who has turned her interest and acquaintance with astronomy into an award-winning web site. In the days ahead, look closely at not only how actress Signourney Weaver dresses but also how she works on screen as she portrays a botanist  involved with the lushly vegetated imaginary moon Pandora in director James Cameron's movie, "Avatar." Seems Cameron, who has a physics background, wanted to ensure the accuracy of his film's portrayal of a female botanist and the alien worlds in which she's situated. So, through a series of turns, the Riverside weeds expert got recruited, not only to advise the actress and on the movie but also in preparing materials for some accompanying, upcoming video game releases. Meantime, in East LA, a master's student has won top honors from throughout the Cal State system for her appealing and innovative new media work, The Desk of One Astronomer. The artful site on astronomy was just one of several award-winners from the Los Angeles campus.

Weed expert in Riverside helps Hollywood accurately portray botanists, exotic plant life

Multimedia site designed by student from East LA campus wins kudos

HIV-AIDS a huge threat to Latinos, homeless

From UCLA & USC

HIV-AIDS remains a virulent health threat that's creating particular havoc in the unseen segments of society, researchers say, noting that the viral infection is especially bad for Latinos who have adapted less to this country and among poor, homeless men. While Latinos, for example, make up 14% of the U.S. population, they're 22% of the new HIV and AIDS cases. Further, a new Bruin study based on surveys of 600 Latinos at community-based organizations, needle-exchange programs and clinics treating sexually transmitted diseases found that Latinos less acculturated in the U.S. took fewer HIV tests, did not test for hepatitis C, were more likely to test positive for HIV-AIDS and had poor access to health care altogether.

Meantime, Trojan researchers have received a $2 million grant to study HIV-AIDS among homeless men, who have some of the highest infection rates of any group in the country. Their attitudes toward the disease and their own sexuality and behaviors has a further complication for their equally poor, unhealthy and HIV-AIDS at-risk women partners.

Latinos less acculturated in U.S. found to be at greater HIV-AIDS risk

HIV-AIDS poses huge threat for homeless men and women

Be thankful, eat right, fret about immigrant kids

From UCI and UCSB

Here's stuff to chew on as the seasonal onslaught of feasting begins: There are ways to still enjoy the holidays while eating more sensibly, especially for Thanksgiving, some researchers in Irvine say, while others in Santa Barbara have sobering thoughts for this country and how it protects -- or doesn't -- some truly vulnerable kids at the heart of the raging national debates on U.S. immigration policies and controls. First off, the food challenges and suggested actions for Thursday: Get filled up ahead of time on healthy fruits and vegetables; cut down on the alcohol imbibing, which also makes you more susceptible to just planting your face in a groaning plate of food; just plain old avoid buffet set-ups or any places where tons of food come to rest.

When it comes time to say any blessings or prayers, if that's what happens at some feasts, ponder the fate of children whose illegal parents are swept up in immigration crackdowns. Samaritans say they're unwilling for the ferocious policy debates on immigration to undercut humane considerations for the proper care of illegals' children. Advocates want to ensure that if such youngsters are separated from their parents, that provisions are made for kids' well being, supervision, housing and other needs. They say more aid may be needed for federal officials thrust into domestic care of youngsters due to enforcement of U.S. immigration laws.

Ways to stay healthy in season of feasting: planning, smarts, restraint

Food for thought: how to protect, care for illegals' children after raids

Oh, we're human: bad behavior, blaming others

From USC

Hoping to stay off St. Nick's lists of miscreants and the mischievous? Well, two Trojan researchers have new work and observations to keep in mind about sometimes negative aspects of humanity: ingrained bad behaviors and the proclivity to cast blame. When it comes to bad habits, they're human and hard to break, one of the psychological experts says, citing her experiments in which two groups got fresh or stale popcorn at a  theater. Just because they were habituated to eating the snack while watching movies, participants in the one group ate even stale popcorn; in another experiment, the subjects saw music videos instead of films and guess what: they didn't down the stale popcorn. Those environmental cues play a role in fostering or ingraining behaviors, the researcher says, adding that she also is researching gender differences in behavior, focusing on their evolutionary origins -- a controversial way to consider human conduct.

Speaking of which, the other researcher says his work shows that the urge to blame others for faults, problems or mistakes is common and will spread and worsen, say, in a workplace, because the conduct is related to self-image and its protection; people get defensive and seek to defend or bolster their self-image by blaming and running down others. The blame game can be destructive to groups and organizations and leaders can prevent this by: allowing others to make mistakes and to learn from these and even to earn praise for their risk-taking; admitting to their own errors and explaining how these helped or bettered them; and, of course, by praising publicly and criticizing or correcting people in private.

 Just how difficult is it to alter those bad behaviors?

Blaming others? It's common, linked to self-image, self-protection

Big worries about numbers of black Bruins

From UCLA

As if one of the nation's crown jewels of education -- the UC system -- hasn't got enough troubles already, well, could the timing be worse on this one: Officials at the key Los Angeles campus are warning that the university's economic headaches, including the need to jack up student fees in drastic fashion -- may curtail the already paltry number of African Americans who enroll at the school. While the numbers of Latinos ekes higher and, of course, Asian American enrollment is high and steady, African Americans have enrolled in dismal low numbers in Westwood, with the 100 freshman mark hit -- a 30-year low -- in 2006; those figures had doubled to 230 in 2008 and 193 in '09. (Do the math folks, and this figure is jaw-dropping still: 200 freshmen? Meaning, um, 800 or so African Americans in a school with 26,000 undergrads?)  But even with concerted efforts to recruit and to support African American students with financial and other kinds of aid, well, African Americans in studies have been found to be most price sensitive of all the admission groups of color and the soaring cost of the UC education combined with reduced overall enrollments bodes poorly for prospects for university diversity. Bruin leaders blame a big part of their diversity woes on the dismal state of K-12 education and the poor pool of possible students it provides for admission. While a clear factor, what does this all say for how this flagship state institution serves its home metropolis, which has one of the largest black population by sheer numbers in the nation? And, of course, the bemoaning of diversity's future by the Bruins comes even as the university just celebrated its four decades of advancements and achievements in major, serious scholarship about the experience of African Americans, Latinos and Asian Americans with their respective studies centers in Westwood.

Costs, smaller enrollments imperil prospects of admissions of African Americans

Bruins celebrate 40 years of ethnic studies in Westwood

Curbing teen pot use? Parents hold the key

From Claremont Graduate University

It's the parents, stupid. Maybe that's the commercial tagline for telling new research on what's most effective for keeping teenagers from turning into problematic little stoners. After reviewing a vast amount of existing studies in the area, with data on more than 35,000 participants, doh, it's as clear as it could be to one expert that the biggest thing parents can do is be active and engaged with their teens and to monitor what they're up to if they wish to curb their pot use. High parental monitoring, in fact, cuts marijuana use by 21%. Put this information toward anti-drug, public service ad campaigns, researchers say, and it's also clear the advantages of certain approaches: Though it was popular, the "This is your brain on drugs" campaign, as previously noted, fails to discourage and even encourages use; the tactics underlying a different appeal -- "Parents: the Anti-Drug" -- has greater prospects, especially if it gets kids and their folks talking. 

Did Jeff Spiccoli's parents know about all this anti-pot data?